Growing a Sustainable Indoor Farm in the South Bay

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

As an active environmentalist for most of his life, Lawrence Dirks' perception of the challenge presented by climate change is that it is existential. His education in sustainable product design and his 15+ years of professional experience in the field of mechanical engineering have led him to believe that a combined mechanical and biological approach is needed to overcome the damage created by industry to our water sheds, the soil needed for farming, and the air which we breath. By utilizing the concept of the plant factory, we can filter water and air in a controlled and measurable way while generating a useful plant material for sale into targeted markets such as the fuel or animal feed industries. By partially combusting the bio-fuel product that is produced via the plant factory in what is called a gasifier generator we can produce useful electricity for our homes (or other electrically powered equipment) and create a rich soil enhancement bi-product known as bio-char.

By awarding an LA2050.org grant to Dirks Duckweed, we will have a sizable portion of the seed money needed to open our phase II operation at the AltaSea facility at the port of Los Angeles (ref. https://altasea.org/). The strategy of Dirks Duckweed is to conduct an R&D year out of our home facility via self funded means. From this R&D year, we hope to gain a foothold within the duckweed market through local sales and ecommerce, to generate intellectual property for the company, and to prove out certain key concepts in our production process. Given the award of LA2050.org funding we would be all but assured the ability to afford the rent and equipment for our phase two operation at AltaSea, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2025 (see timeline, section 11). With this expansion, we would be able to produce a larger crop, recruit more volunteers, and hire several technicians to manage a wider array of activities within the company. During this second phase of the corporate growth process, we also intend to conduct research on producing fuel pellets made from our duckweed produce and test them within various gasifier systems and thereby gauge the efficacy of the fuel.

If we are successful in emerging from our 1st year as a company to get into a phase two 2nd year at the location described, then Los Angeles will be equipped with a new internally generated prototype fuel and produce production facility. The work that will be done at this facility will be critically located at a central hub of global commerce (i.e. The Port of Los Angeles). Once the concepts described can be proven and funding can be gathered for further expansion, then many hundreds of tons of the duckweed produce can be processed in a local full scale plant factory (i.e. phase three). At this point the business will be able to contribute to and be of support to a whole host of green technology and agricultural endeavors such as pelletized fuel driven maritime shipping vessels, pelletized fuel driven supplemental power systems for new construction projects (i.e. micro-grid applications), and large scale sustainably sourced protein rich animal feed-stock supply.

This project (i.e. Dirks Duckweed) is still in its infancy, if not still in its embryotic state; however, there are many ways to measure the progress towards our stated mission of reducing atmospheric CO2, enriching soil, and cleansing water streams. These methods will include sensory implementation within the plant factory to monitor things like CO2 level or water filtration results relative to plant growth (measured by weight). Other metrics such as the efficiency of energy production potential vs energy input will also be measured. Finally, the output of bio-char production can be estimated for certain gasifier equipment such that the end user can understand how much of this resource they may be able to apply as a soil enrichment supplement. By these many tried as true engineering methods, the operation of Dirks Duckweed will be able to demonstrate the effect it is having towards its stated corporate goals.